Strange Samba and WebGUI behavior over WIFI

[reilym]

Hi, I am a newbie with FreeNAS, running 11.3 U5. I have some very basic UNIX knowledge and successfully set up FreeNAS on an 8 core AMD Phenom box for central home Windows file storage.
When I access the SMB shares or use the WebGUI from my W10 laptop over ethernet, everything works perfectly. On the same laptop going through the same router using WIFI the Samba share comes up, however most (but not all) of the folders are not accessible and have a little grey X next to them. Also, I can connect to the NAS box via WebGUI over WIFI, but sometimes it takes several attempts and frequently hangs, requiring me to start over and log in again. If I close the share, plug in the ethernet cable and re-map the network drive, all folders are and the WebGUI is stable. It seems to me that this must be a problem not with FreeNAS, but with my router WIFI setup. The WIFI router is setup with two SSID's (one primary and one for guest). The primary SSID is set up to automatically provide a 5 or 2.4 GHz connection depending on client location.

I've tried to search the forum for similar issues, but have not been successful. I am happy to extract information from the NAS box, but would need some instruction on where to look and how to generate the dump. Any help on troubleshooting this or pointing me to similar threads would be appreciated.

 

[Nick2253]

It seems to me that this must be a problem not with FreeNAS, but with my router WIFI setup.

Bingo. My guess is that your router is doing something funky.

Fundamentally, FreeNAS can't tell the difference between a wired and wireless client, assuming they're on the same subnet. So I'd guess that there's some problem with the quality of your connection between your laptop and the wifi router, or something internally wrong with the wifi router.

My usual recommendations in a situation like this are to:

• Factory reset the device
• Install any and all updated firmware
• If compatible, upgrade to a third-party firmware that gives you more direct control.
• Throw it away and buy a proper enterprise wifi system (Ubiquiti, etc)

 

[sretalla]

It sounds like maybe you have the option set on your router to Isolate wireless clients... meaning no WiFi client can talk to a LAN connected device.

DNS would still work, but I guess what you're describing not working could be explained by not being able to route there from the WiFi... only some cached components of the Web GUI allowing you to have the (false) impression that you're connected even when you aren't.

 

[reilym]

I solved the problem. Turns out Norton was set to secure my home WIFI. Turning that off solved the problem entirely. I am embarrassed that I did not think of that earlier, but it's nice to again have access to FREENAS without plugging in. The attachment shows the Norton firewall settings. It's possible that one or more of the WIFI settings is the culprit and I might play around with each of the options to see if I can narrow it down. Any ideas on which of these might be interfering with access to FREENAS might save me some time.

 

[sretalla]

TrueNAS is likely to be doing ARP spoofing (jails, VMs or apps), so that's one to think about.